Joyrides for Shut-Ins: Stories

By (MEP)

This wonderfully inventive collection of stories displays American absurdist (MEP) at its perplexing and hilarious best. Inside you will find micro-fiction, short stories, and all in between chronicling the encounters, desires, and violence of America's culture and psyche.

 

Admirers of Samuel Beckett, Lydia Davis, and Chuck Palahniuk will be sure to enjoy wading in this kaleidoscope of dead-pan incidents that blends and blurs imagination and truth into a masterful chiaroscuro.

• Language: English
• Publisher: trash books
• Release date: Aug 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201172060

(MEP)

(MEP) is another name for (-_-). They are autistic and live in the space between matter. Their stories have been in many ezines and lower literary lifeforms. Some have been collected in Joyrides for Shut-In and they even wrote a novel called American Standard.

Book preview

Publication History

Loneliness is Worse, Full of Crow 2009

Salvation Vs. Spirit, Literal Minded 2009

Suicidal Yuppy, The Legendary 2009

Seniority, Zygote in My Coffee 2009

A Loner, 6 Sentences, 2010

Faded, Broken Pencil 2011

A Garden, Ruthless Peoples

Untitled 2, Blink-Ink 2009

Writing, Full of Crow, 2009

The Bathroom, The Legendary 2009

Fertility Week, Zygote in My Coffee 2009

Trial of Empathy, TNA3

In the Cabin, Blink-Ink 2009

Blood, Stanley the Whale 2012

Glowing Signs, The Dream People 2007

Day Care, Stanley the Whale, 2012

––––––––

The following stories are bio-fiction and only half real.

Names have not been changed to expose the guilty.

AT THE HOSPITAL

The abortionist released the melancholy nun.

IN THE CUBICLE

Bloody outcast works in down-sized corporation.

UNTITLED #1

Despite wounds, pornographer marries prom queen.

UNTITLED #16

Geriatric slide. Adolescent rage. Awards gleam.

UNTITLED #17

Love Toxic. Many reproductions. Redundant disappointment.

UNTITLED #28

Criminals ran. Cops ran. Flamingos pursued.

UNTITLED #20

It’s paint.

It’s blood.

It’s paint. It won’t come off.

It’s salt. It just snowed.

It’s paint.

It’s salt.

It’s semen.

Hm. Yes, it is spectacular.

IN THE CABIN

Bodies bled all over the floor. I couldn’t tell whose smile was bigger: yours, my son, or mine. After we watched Sesame Street, I decided it was yours.

UNTITLED

He cleaned the halls, stole the shrimp, and spread infidelity. The award did not come as a surprise.

UNTITLED #3

His wife moaned with pleasure, just as the Spam promised. But did the whole world have to gawk?

UNTITLED #2

Dragging my stump, I rolled to my long awaited destiny: ping-pong. I left the dead bodies in my path. If I had a mouth, I would smile so wide.

UNTITLED #5

A million dollars, said the Governor.

For both families? The Vet gasped.

At least they’re dead.

UNTITLED #25

She discarded her clothes like a dirty tissue. Flesh shook to the beat of air hammers against skulls. 5 million Chairmen imagined they saw the sun in the moon. The brokers screamed, Anal mucus. Anal mucus. She admired the money tree and willed the leaves to fall.

UNTITLED #24

The legend expanded and strove. Much like the dog problem in his colon.

Is the end near? he asked the writer.

The writer shrugged and drove home.

A LONER

He stayed in his house. He didn’t talk to his neighbors. He worked from home. He never had visitors. No one was surprised when the police arrested him for murder. I was surprised I got away with it.

A GRANDMOTHER’S LOVE

Since my son started eating solid foods, my mother-in-law has been bringing over cookies for him to eat. Everyday she would bring two packages of Chips Delux, two packages of Double Stuff Fudge, and a few packages of variety party packs. My son would eat them for her. All of them. We tried to stop him, but he just got violent.

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